Most major Gulf stock markets fell on Thursday, with Saudi Arabia leading the way on declines in corporate earnings, though Qatar bucked the trend as banks rose.
In Saudi Arabia, the benchmark index was down 0.5%, with Al Rajhi Bank declining 0.7% and Jabal Omar Development sliding 2.9%, making it the biggest in the index.
The developer posted a net loss of 80.6 million riyals ($21.5 million) on Wednesday compared with a profit of 469.6 million a year earlier. The firm blamed the losses on lower revenue from sales of residential units.
Advanced Petrochemical fell 1.1%. It reported a rise in third-quarter net profit of more than 5% but revenue dropped over 13%.
Al Moammar Information Systems fell 1.8% after reporting a decline in third-quarter net profit.
In Qatar, the index edged up 0.1% with the Gulf's largest lender Qatar National Bank climbing 0.7% while Masraf Al Rayan was up 0.8%.
On Monday, Masraf Al Rayan reported marginal growth in nine-month net profit to 1.65 billion riyals, up from 1.63 billion a year earlier.
The Dubai's index opened 0.2% lower as blue-chip developer Emaar Properties retreated 0.7% and Dubai Investments dropped 1.6%.
The latter posted a drop in its third-quarter profit to 105.5 million dirhams ($28.7 million) from 233.3 million a year earlier.
In Abu Dhabi, the index edged down 0.1% with market heavyweight First Abu Dhabi Bank losing 0.6%. ($1 = 3.7502 riyals) ($1 = 3.6727 UAE dirham)
(Reporting by Shamsuddin Mohd in Bengaluru; Editing by David Clarke) ((shamsuddin.mohd@thomsonreuters.com; +918067497252;))
